I sat down to watch The Wolverine not expecting a great movie. The trailers I had seen featured action sequences obviously filmed in front of green screen, giving the impression that this movie didn't have the budget it needed to tell a truly great superhero story. (Okay, Wolverine/Logan is an anti-hero, but you know what I mean.) Still, I knew this movie was highly anticipated by many geeks, so I carved out the time and sat in the theater to see what would come of this second attempt at a Wolverine solo movie. I was surprised by what I got. In some ways good, and in some ways bad.

The Wolverine picks up at some point after the events of X-Men 3: The Last Stand. At the end of that movie (spoiler warning!!) Wolverine is forced to kill the woman he loves, Jean Grey, to prevent her from murdering countless humans and mutants.

At the start of "The Wolverine", Logan has cut himself off from past associations, vowing to never again hurt another person. He is plagued by nightmares and haunted by dreams in which he converses with Jean. The result is a continually renewed sense of guilt and loss for Logan.

An old friend from Japan (old, as in "World War 2") sends a messenger to bring Logan back to Tokyo so that he can see him one more time before he dies. Logan reluctantly agrees, only to find himself wrapped up in a war between the Japanese mafia and the family owners of a large corporation. A war that pushes Logan to his limits and brings him closer to death than he has ever come before.